Newsletter – n°28 – November 2014

Headlines

The territorial cooperation in the Mediterranean towards a sustainable development and resilient territories was at the heart of the Mediterranean Cooperation days, during which PLATFORMA co-organised two round tables on the future global development agendas (sustainable development goals and future climate agreement).

The Mediterranean represents a meeting point of numerous cultures, civilisations and traditions, a rich but equally complex space whose fragile balance is endlessly threatened by the outbreak of new crises, be it financial, political or environmental.  

Every country has its own specific features, however for the territories on the North, South or Eastern banks, the challenges are identical and interlinked; the pollution of the marine areas and the coastlines, the increasing scarcity of water resources, the increase of extreme weather phenomena, the management of sustainable tourism, high youth unemployment, few growth engines etc.

These challenges call for the collaboration between various stakeholders in the search for common solutions around a sea and an area of peace shared by all, as pointed out by Nicolas Zingaretti, President of the Lazio Region, Michel Vauzelle, President of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur Region and of the CIM-CPMR, as well as Massimo Toschi, special adviser to Enrico Rossi, President of the Tuscany Region and spokesperson of PLATFORMA, in the opening session of debates.

In the first round table co-organised by PLATFORMA and during which Grammenos Mastrojeni, representative of the Italian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, recalled that the different regions have a responsibility in the pursuit of the sustainable development goals (SDG), Davor Stier, member of the European Parliament and rapporteur for the post-2015 agenda, stressed that local and regional governments (LRGs) do not only represent the means through which the SDGs can be achieved, but that they should also be actively involved in the decision making process.

Martin Guillermo, Secretary General of the Association of European Border Regions (AEBR) and moderator of the session, called for the establishment of an enabling institutional framework at all levels of government and encouraged a closer partnership between the European Union and LRGs in the promotion of an ambitious and well-designed post-2015 development framework.

The second round table enabled to highlight the actions undertaken, namely through decentralised cooperation, in the fight against climate change; as such the city of Sfax, the Rabat-Salé-Zemmour region, the region of Andalucía and the Basque Country presented projects which allowed significant energy savings, the investment in renewable resources and the diversification of the economic sector and which have made territories more resilient.

The Mediterranean Cooperation Days additionally allowed for a debate on the opportunity to create a macro-regional European strategy for the Mediterranean; relying on both green and blue growth and on a strengthened partnership between territories, this strategy would streamline the European, national and regional policies for the Mediterranean sea basin.

Jointly organised by the Lazio Region, the Inter-Mediterranean Commission of the CPMR and PLATFORMA, the Mediterranean Cooperation Days were held in Rome (Italy) on 10, 11, 12 November and brought together representatives from European institutions, local and regional authorities and experts from across the Mediterranean.